Is the pet food you are serving up killing your four-legged friend? (and making your vet rich)

By Alison Smith Squire
Last updated at 10:30 AM on 20th January 2010

Like millions of pet owners, Fiona MacMillan was anxious to do the very best for her cat. 'When I got my first kitten, Jaggers, I asked the vet for some advice on feeding, and when she directed me to a well-known brand of dried food, I was happy to take her professional advice,' she says.

'My vet said she gave it to her own cats and had never had any problems. I was delighted. It never smelled, I could tip some in Jaggers' bowl before I went out to work in the morning and leave it out all day without any fear that it would go off. And he loved it.'

Today, Fiona, 59, a former university librarian, bitterly regrets her decision to feed Jaggers on the convenience food. For when he was just seven, Jaggers was diagnosed with kidney disease. The same vet prescribed some more dried food, especially designed for cats with urinary problems.

Yet, despite Fiona religiously following her vet's advice, Jaggers collapsed three months later. And by the time Fiona got him to the animal hospital for treatment, it was too late. Her beloved cat was so unwell he had to be put to sleep.

'I was devastated, but at the time I thought there was nothing I could have done to prevent Jaggers' kidney disease,' she says. But then she decided to do some research.

'Was it genetics? Do a lot of cats suffer from it? I just wanted to know,' she recalls.

'And then I came across a website created by Lisa Pierson, a pet nutritionist, that completely shocked me. It explained that processed dried food - the exact kind I'd been feeding Jaggers for years - is linked to urinary and kidney problems.

'I was horrified. This had never even been raised as a possibility by my vet. But after I'd read about this, I spoke to another vet, who agreed with Lisa Pierson.

He knew about the problems caused by processed foods, and said that if I'd fed Jaggers a more natural diet - such as raw meat or cooked chicken - he might never have fallen ill.'

Her story is sure to concern anyone with a pet, particularly because few people are aware of the little-publicised concerns about processed pet foods - and that includes 'wet' (i.e. tinned and packet) foods as well.

And part of the problem, as a Mail investigation can reveal, is that much of the veterinary industry is inextricably linked to the pet-food manufacturers.
Golden retriever

Some processed foods are linked with poor behaviour in dogs, and even with cancer

Research into pet food is carried out by the pet-food companies but, more surprisingly, the training of vets at some universities is also funded by pet-food manufacturers.

Crucially, lectures on nutrition at a number of vet schools, and for veterinary nurses at individual practices, are also often paid for - and even taught - by these huge corporations, giving them the ideal platform to promote their products.

One could argue that given this information, it's hardly in vets' interests to promote a more natural diet for pets.

That suspicion has certainly occurred to Catherine O'Driscoll, 52, who like Fiona MacMillan saw a pet die. In her case, it was all three of her golden retrievers, two from cancer and the third from a disease that paralysed his hind legs - all at a relatively young age.

'I'm a dog trainer and have had pets for years. I know how to care for them,' says Catherine, from Kinross, Perthshire. 'But none of my three dogs lived past the age of eight, and I began to think I was the world's worse owner.

'I had two other dogs, and was determined to see them live longer. And it was after I read an article in a magazine by an Australian vet, which explained that feeding animals processed food could be bad for their health, that I switched away from commercial processed food.

'Afterwards, I saw a huge difference in their vitality. They both lived to 17, and I now believe that changing their diets saved their lives.

'A decade ago, I took the advice of my vet that feeding tinned and dried food was best for my dogs. I had no reason to question the professionals and many dog owners don't now.'

Catherine and Fiona are not alone in thinking they were misled. In internet chatrooms dedicated to pets, increasing numbers of people have been sharing concerns about processed pet food.

They believe that, just as junk food is responsible for myriad health problems and obesity in humans, our love of convenience pet food - be it processed meat in cans or pouches, or dried biscuits - is doing the same to pets.

A generation ago, people mostly fed their pets on butchers' scraps such as heart, liver and bones. Convenience pet foods were an expensive luxury. But now the pet food industry is valued at Â£2 billion and growing.

I have six cats.
3 of them are at least 16 years old and one of them probably closer 18, all of them have lived for the last 14 years on dried food without the slightest problem, non of them have ever been to the vet in that time and are all in good (if a little elderly) health.

Some pet foods contain high levels of sugars and salt, also colourings and preservative which have been banned from human foodstuffs due to them being carcinogenic or precursors to ADHD.
If someone comes to me with an out of control or naughty dog first thing I ask is what are they feeding it.
Unfortunately it is mostly the easy to get hold of brands found in supermarkets that are the worst.

We feed our greyhound Max on a complete dry mixture which is recomended by the local greyhound rescue centre and this is supplemented by fresh scraps and leftovers and with food we make up for him ourselves. This way we can control what goes into his food and make sure that he gets what is good for him.

His favourite is fresh black pudding mixed in with his breakfast, and he is also rather partial to pasta for tea.

Last night he had some beef goulash and dumplings mixed in with his biscuit.

He gets a boiled egg once a week as a treat and a couple of spoonfuls of cod liver oil and olive oil for his joints and to keep his fur in good condition.

I wonder whether the animals who've died have always had access to plenty of water to flush out toxins and to prevent them becoming dehydrated. We've always fed our cats on a mixture of wet and dry food, with occasional treats of fresh meat and they've always had plenty of water to drink. My cats have a particular love of fruit, but I don't give them too much too often as they get a little hyper from the sugar rush!

Always a great disappointment with my dogs that they have all been too lazy to go find their own food, and when they find it don't quite seem to know what to do with it. The last Jack Russell showed the greatest promise at self feeding, on seeing the elephants at the local safari park, but I roughly calculated how many freezers I would need to avoid waste, so reluctantly feed them myself.

Seriously when I look at the trash people fill their supermarket trolleys to feed themselves with, I am totally unsurprised they don't consider what a dog needs. Dogs are omniverous and not hard to feed cheaply.

Some of the working dog mixes are quite good when you look at the content, but most of the supermarket stuff I wouldn't feed a rat on!

The other factor is value in nourishment for money paid, and pet food is near as dear as decent human food and someties appreciably dearer protein per pound.

Chickens are dirt cheap, and a dog doesnt need a fine wine sauce, just roasted and pulled apart from the bones, and careful late-shopping has got me chickens down to 50p, quickly cooked and froz! I don't overdo liver, though cheap, I worry a bit about building up chemicals a dog's liver cannot handle; but kidney, heart, and any meat that is knocked down at the end of a supermarket day can be easily bulk-cooked and frozen. Sausages are now dirt cheap as is supermarket mince. In addition, dogs generally eat most vegetables.
Plain meal for dogs can be good, but mine also get potato, pasta, (that's dirt cheap too!), or whatever is going.

Dogs taste varies as well, one of my current pair is keen on apple cores, grapes and bananas, whilst the other sees that as beneath her.

I will say both mine get significant exercise and I will have to watch them as they get older on fats etc if they start to put on excess weight, but by and large I wouldn't get finicky, just throw at them!

I have fed my dog on raw food - chickens (bones and all), turkey necks, liver, leg of lamb, tripe, fish - all uncooked and he loves it. No health problems whatsover, great teeth and loads of energy. The only problem is getting the balance right. Too much bone and the poops become hard and dry, too little they are too soft. You also have to ensure that they are not getting too much protein or too much of a particular type of protein because that can have massive health implications. They do need extra supplements just to make sure that they are getting everything they need.

As was mentioned in the article, the majority of vets have no clue about nutrition in animals as the whole week of training they do receive, is sponsored by Dog Food manufacturers!

Essentially dry foods evolved out of laziness of dog owners and clever food producers who had loads of low quality by-products and nothing to do with them. Dry food is an all in one meal that owners can stick down, that does not smell (too badly) and comes in a convenient sized bag for a very cheap price.

And this is why no one see's white dog poo anymore - people give their dogs less bone now than they did years ago !

There was a very large-scale, ten-year study (20,000+ dogs) done in the USA a few years ago, where half the dogs in the study were fed half the amount of dog food recommended on the tin/packet by the manufacturer for their lifetime. These dogs were demonstrated to be generally much healthier, fitter and longer-lived than those dogs that had been fed the full recommended amount.

It's also worth mentioning that dogs can also suffer from most of the same health problems associated with eating raw meat as we do!

The problem therefore may actually be the amount that food that pets are fed, rather than the type of food.

My dog (8 year-old mental spaniel-collie cross with the attention-span of a guppy) gets one pouch of dog food per day, plus a handful of mixer (about half what the manufacturer recommends) and thrives on it. My mate's spaniels meanwhile get the recommened daily amount of food and are lard-arses with health problems.

I have fed my dog on raw food - chickens (bones and all), turkey necks, liver, leg of lamb, tripe, fish - all uncooked and he loves it. No health problems whatsover, great teeth and loads of energy. The only problem is getting the balance right. Too much bone and the poops become hard and dry, too little they are too soft. You also have to ensure that they are not getting too much protein or too much of a particular type of protein because that can have massive health implications. They do need extra supplements just to make sure that they are getting everything they need.

As was mentioned in the article, the majority of vets have no clue about nutrition in animals as the whole week of training they do receive, is sponsored by Dog Food manufacturers!

Essentially dry foods evolved out of laziness of dog owners and clever food producers who had loads of low quality by-products and nothing to do with them. Dry food is an all in one meal that owners can stick down, that does not smell (too badly) and comes in a convenient sized bag for a very cheap price.

And this is why no one see's white dog poo anymore - people give their dogs less bone now than they did years ago !

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Mine get raw now and then but it has to be chopped or minced...if whole they just bury it!! its a nightmare....

An important point here to understand is that Vets get paid commission for pushing a particular product, Hills Science Diet is popular through Vets and is possibly the most expensive pet food on the planet (Eukanuba is another).

The reality is that unless your animal already has some kind of sensitive condition where a particular diet is essential, as some humans do, then a good old mix of anything and everything is probably best.

I wonder whether the animals who've died have always had access to plenty of water to flush out toxins and to prevent them becoming dehydrated. We've always fed our cats on a mixture of wet and dry food, with occasional treats of fresh meat and they've always had plenty of water to drink. My cats have a particular love of fruit, but I don't give them too much too often as they get a little hyper from the sugar rush!

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Even tho I leave Daisy Cat a big pan of water out,I've never seen her drink in the 4 month's I've had her.She get's wet KitECat & Purely with a bowl of Purina dry left out.